


blackbird

by WabiSabi



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Family Issues, Family of Choice, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Murdoc childhood was just terrible, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Phase 1, Redemption, Slow Romance, Soft but complicated relationship, Sort Of, Time Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, Violence, as in don´t take anything that Murdoc thinks or says at face value, auhor doesn´t know shit about music beyond listening it, discussion of abuse, he´s 'says with his actions' type of guy, murdoc and his adventure on trying being a decent human being
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-01-06 01:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WabiSabi/pseuds/WabiSabi
Summary: Murdoc is running, Devil literally on his tail. So he does what any logical person would do: sends himself back twenty years in the past to gain some time and in the meanwhile figure out how this whole 'be a good person' works. How hard could it be, right?





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaim: Gorillaz and everything about its characters, songs, etc does not belong to me.
> 
> the author is twenty years late to fandom but wants to write about it anyway

The devil disliked 2D the most. At first, in the beginning, it didn´t make much sense because there was Noodle, sweet ten-year-old Noodle who laughed loudly and loved running and jumping on furniture and stealing cheek kisses. He could understand the hatred for _both_ of them, since Russell although was as he was, _did_ have a history with demons and devils and ghosts and carried something of it along the way, the same type of something that Murdoc carries. And this type of thing _will_ tarnish the soul. The nicest, the more the stain stands out, after all.

But between Noodle and 2D, he didn't use to get the fucking preference. Maybe the devil has a personal bias, like humanity.

Then there were Osaka and 22 siblings.

Things got clear after that. Since with the exception of a tree fall whose result, in Murdoc's opinion, _greatly_ made up for the screws beaten out of place, 2D has nothing on his account darker than a terrible surname, which probably doesn't count since he also has a father willing to make the effort of burying this particular piece of history. It counterbalances. The boy is that amalgamation of boring and normal things, a mother and a father and a house and school and stupid interests of so regular – like porcelain with absolutely no cracks or pieces missing. _No wonder_, he thinks, _the devil hated him more than anyone else_, for there are no crevices for it to creep into. Murdoc hates doors that don't open too.

At least that was how it was at first, in Kong with success still fresh to all and the boy unable to transpose a sentence without stuttering when talking to anyone other than his parents or Noodle. Clear glass with no place to sink nails.

(Like with everything else in his life, Murdoc took a sledgehammer against this concept and soon cracks and gaps and stains, little by little, year after year, began to appear, however.)

He reflects about this all while sitting on his Vauxhall Astra, open window not doing much for the smoke of the fag hanging between his lips. It´s not of his usual temperament reflect on anything but his music, himself and the approximate distance of the nearest bar Vs. the possibility of a police route on his way there. But the car radio is busted – the result of his last robbery, perhaps? As much as Murdoc likes cars, he was never particularly attached to any that came to be in his possession, with one or two exceptions. Nor has he ever been in the habit of taking care of his stuff, not when getting another after breaking the first is a more comfortable option. He has nothing to distract himself with. Cell phones are a thing of TV series and although there are some playboys inside his glove compartment, he´s not in the mood.

Anyway, that would only distract him for a few minutes. _Perhaps something stronger_, he considers taking a drag and holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds. While he was rummaging through this banger, he found some things more interesting than tobacco, including and not limited to a bottle of vodka cheaper than a condom, a much more promising alcohol prospective than the room-temperature beer in his cup holder.

Murdoc does not move except to take the cigarette out of his mouth, letting the smoke out.

The Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium shop window shows a large half-open grand piano. He still has to yet look away from there since the moment he parked the car across the street. There are a few customers inside and a bloke in a black suit and abysmal mustache by the register. A figure in the most horrible brown suit in existence is leaning over the grand piano, fiddling with the internal mechanism? The lid blocks their upper body, leaving only the slim waist and the mosquito legs in sight.

It has been ten minutes since Murdoc started watching, seeing him slowly inching closer to the rod keeping the lid ajar none the wiser, obviously moving from string to string. _What an idiot._

He taps his cigarette out the window to get rid of the ashes.

He glances at the clock in the restaurant right beside the car, noticing the minute hand dropping to six. He then puffs one last time and throws the butt into his beer can, adjusts the seat and puts the seatbelt, feeling the weight weirdly on his chest. _Huh_, when was the last time he wore a seatbelt? Whatever. Starting and shifting into first gear is fluid, even after almost a decade of dealing with automatic cars, his eyes intent on the corner visible in the rear-view mirror. He hears a loud _bang!_ and the sound of multiple piano keys being slapped from Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium and a worried cacophony from several people as tires screaming on the asphalt fills the street and a Chevy impala flies in, so Murdoc is laughing when he reacts instinctively.

Foot sinks into the gas and the Vauxhall Astra sings. Shoots forward. He throws to second as he spins the car in a beautiful half-moon across the street. Burning rubber.

Lands in front of the Impala at full speed.

-

The windows are open, which means that when the other car hits him at 80km/h, his head whips into the air and no glass shatters and Murdoc does not die instantly.

Not that Murdoc _planned_ it. 

A happy coincidence.

-

_Shit-_

Everything hurts when he comes around, his neck and shoulder more than all else combined. He curses and spits the blood from where he bit his tongue. _Shit_. He blinks to see the front glass like a cobweb, shakes his head to get off shards, but there's nothing – he chose this car for a reason, Murdoc supposes, tougher than your usual windshield and less likely to blind you when going through a shop window.

From the corner of his eye, he can see the smashed side, a huge indent of metal and torn padding that almost touches his elbow. His thigh is wet from where the beer has spilled. Nothing but the smoke of a wrecked engine blocking the other car from view. _Whatever_. From the corner of his other eye he can see that Norm's Organ Emporium's window is intact, if only centimeters away. The people inside the store are all staring and shouting, but honestly, he can't hear over the broken alarm and horn, the creaking of metal and the buzzing inside his skull, probably due to his brain being unceremoniously rattled

He does not look, especially when he sees a mixture of blue and brown and his body reacts alone, closing his eyes. Instead, he grabs the extra fag he left in his shirt pocket and lights it with a beer-surviving match, noting indifferently that his wrist is in agony as he shakes and extinguishes the fire. A drag and the nicotine is a blessing – he unbuckles the seatbelt at last and slides out of the car through the window, cigarette between teeth and hands gripping the roof to lift his body out.

Pain is like the car alarm but inside his skull. He ignores it too.

He sits on the ceiling for a moment because his legs are shaking and he doesn't want to crumple on the floor (ceiling) like an idiot. Take the moment to exhale the smoke.

"Oh my God, are you alright?!"

He darts a side-glance to the horrible-mustache man, pale and horrified at the shop door, his bald head gleaming in the late afternoon light. Rubs the still bleeding tongue on his teeth before smiling and is rewarded by the way the man flinches back and becomes even whiter. _Is he going to pass out?_ He snickers. "Oi, pass that bit of metal, would you?" He asks nonchalantly, waving the fag towards a rod of metal on the floor. Probably a piece of the car, since the floor is littered with those.

The man looks at the metal and back at him. He bends down, grabs it and throws it to Murdoc almost robotically, wanker seems to be in shock, which is _mental_ since he´s the one who crashed the car and he´s fine.

He´s fine.

Adrenaline is a bitch, is all. The crash, he means. Like any other drug.

Murdoc grabs the metal rod with his free hand. Assesses it for a moment: gives time for the smoke to subside enough behind him.

_“Niccals!”_

There is the sound of someone kicking a car door open, multiple shoes crunching on broken glass. The growl of his name makes him smile and he stands on the roof of his wrecked car before turning.

“Hey, there, Billy Fuckwit! Still as ugly as a whore's ass, eh?”

The man in question is purple and it is, frankly, an even more horrible sight than his normal face, freckles like black dots and the normally piss yellow hair red where there is a large cut on his forehead. Freckles are not for everyone, indeed. It's like seeing a nice nose in a fish, it doesn't improve the image, it just makes clear that the components don´t belong together. Munch and Tiny are no easier on the eyes, covered in shards of glass and with more than one broken nose and cuts. _Seatbelt, cunts_, he thinks with a grin (ignoring the fact that this was perhaps the third time in his entire life that he had deigned to put it on).

“You motherfucker dickhead!” Billy screams and it´s possible to see the spit flying. He tries to step forward and crumbles, not splattering on the floor only because he manages to clings to the car in time. “What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!”

Murdoc parts his lips, still smiling, tongue covered with blood showing. “Eh, the usual, being brilliant, fucking your shit up-”

“You tit-!”

"-Because you see, Billy, when I tell you to drop it, _you fucking drop it!"_

Tiny pulls Billy out of the way and the metal cracks against the side mirror and _rips it off_. Drops on the floor with a loud _clang!_ that echoes and Munch leaps away. The street is quiet, just the alarms and broken horns for a brief and incredible instant where Murdoc and the idiots that once, when he was so desperate that he was essentially brain-dead _and_ deaf, he thought were his one-way ticket to success, just face each other. 

The anger on the wankers´ faces is swept away for a second of shock.

Maybe because the Murdoc of this time, three decades of desperation under his belt and no experience in standing-up to anything but a bar fight, doesn't know how to be scary. He knows how to be angry, spiteful, mean- a cruel asshole, the kind of git that waves a knife while drunk out of their asses and that are only scary at night, to the nice bloke trying to get home to their family. Almost every scum in this city already had the chance to smack him around so they know thirty-year-old Murdoc is too much of a coward to be taken seriously.

He still is. Murdoc Alphonce Niccals will probably die a coward.

But the difference is that shit leveled up around him. Thinks about a shadow hunting him down to the ends of Earth and airplanes and orange jumpsuits and could honest-to-whatever _laugh_ because he got to see and face things that turn these three wanna-be-criminal wankers into a fucking _joke_.

Fucking brilliant, really. Apparently lack of fear makes a person scarier.

He can't _wait_ to take advantage of this.

“You cockbite,” Billy spits, half the venom from before gone. There´s wariness in its place now.

“Eh, I'm more of a 'cock sucker' type.”

Tiny growls, baring his teeth. One of them is broken. “The fuck, Niccals, you could have killed us! Did you lose your goddamn mind?!”

Murdoc puffs his fag and lets the smoke escape through his teeth as he smiles, feeling the skin of his face like old leather moving.

Munch looks around nervously, seeming to notice the growing crowd. “Guys-”

“I'm gonna pound the rest of your nose in, you fucker!”

"Get down here!"

Murdoc raises an eyebrow and laughs. “Do you think I´m a pillock like you lot? Why would I do that?”

A vein is beginning to appear on Billy's forehead. “If you fucking have a pair-!”

It's inevitable. He cracks-up, head falling back and he almost drops the cigarette between his fingers and definitely chokes on the smoke – cough, and laughter mingle, scraping sandpaper down his throat and sounding even worse as he heaves. Murdoc once had a reasonable voice. Nothing magnificent, nothing like 2D on a good day and definitely with no comparison to 2D on a bad day. But 21 years as a smoker do wonders for your vocal cords, apparently. 'Smoker's voice' is not just an aesthetic descriptive term, that you read in a shitty teenage novel.

But back to the most important things: he recovers the grip on the fag, even though logically he should be more concerned about the lack of air in his lungs ('smoker's lungs' is another thing. For someone like him, it makes no difference, but later on with the years accumulating, it became a problem for 2D and even Noodle, who make regular use of them).

"'A pair' ...!" He is still guffawing. The concept of that provocation is already stupid, but Murdoc had thought that his character was well known enough around these days. Evidently, no.

Billy makes a strangled sound of hatred, the previously fear digested and flings himself forward.

Except the idiot forgot about his injured leg and what happens is that he gives in like a sack of shit in the next step and snaps against his Astra's head first. His skull makes a _clang_ that trembles even the hood beneath his feet and the man disappears from sight as he collapses, fainted or not, and it sets Murdoc off again: his stomach begins to cramp and he bends forward, chortling. Maybe it's karma or something, Destiny winking at him the way a villain winks before pushing a red button, because it's the sound of his laughter that once again masks the sound designed to alert him and Murdoc only notices Tiny when his ankle is grabbed.

Tiny yanks him and Murdoc chokes out mid-laugh, a shout of alarm. He crashes on his side, elbow snapping against the metal and shattering the nerves up to his shoulder, the cigarette flying from his hand. He barely has time to understand what's going on and start kicking with his free foot but he´s being hauled out of the car. Tiny grab his shirt and lifts him up. Murdoc snarls, grab the wrist holding him and something _cracks_ against his temple. 

His head whips to the side and the world shudders, his ear pops. Murdoc blinks, stunned.

Metallic, salty taste in his mouth.

"Oh, fuck, my fag..." He slurs, the butt on the floor beside him. Still alight. “It was the last-”

The rest of the sentence burst out with his air when he is thrown back and slams onto something. His car? The floor? Shatters his spine. He cannot breathe or see. Not that it's important. He didn't swallow air back yet when another punch flogs his face, the same side, cheek. He bites his tongue again or maybe it's a tooth sticking out – another? Nah, he remembers licking the continuous rows of teeth in his mouth with some surprise when he woke up here. Another punch, eye this time. By the time Gorillaz exploded, he had several holes in his mouth and only the band´s money that allowed him to finally fill them. Cheek again. But here he has no money for something fancy like a dentist, fuck, if he loses a tooth- Stomach. Girls don't like toothless men as a general rule unless you're 2D, which is not a good idea. All his girlfriends were weird, hot, yes, but weird.

Two more in the stomach and one last in the head when sirens fill the street and Tiny freezes. Murdoc notices this when a second passes and the pain does not restart at a new level.

“Shit! Bill-!”

“I told ya -!” Munch is _screaming_, the fucker.

Oh, his head is killing him.

Tiny releases him and he collapses – discovers that it was not the floor Tiny's anvil of choice, but his car. Murdoc feels the hot metal against the agony of his back. His face is throbbing so badly that he can't even feel the pain, but he can feel the blood running down his neck, soaking his shirt. Filling his mouth again. Somehow, he is still standing and he is impressed with himself for the time it takes for his legs to give in and he slides to the floor. _Oh well_.

The smell of burnt rubber and fuel is unbearable and does not help to breathe. There's blood in his nose too and Murdoc takes a moment to try to feel if it's broken – would it be the fourth time here?

His vision is half faded, blurred. His left eye is closed, whether because it has already swelled or because of the river of blood streaming down his forehead, Murdoc could only guess in a scenery where he gave a shit. Instead, he focuses on the vague memory of the butt and blindly searches for through the shard-strewn floor, earning him more than one cut. And then a burn when he finds it, his fingers touching the lit tip.

He picks it up and brings it to his mouth – pausing for a moment just to swallow the blood.

His sigh brings nicotine smoke to his lungs and he relaxes against the hot car, letting his head rolls back. The sky is painted grey, as usual.

He can hear Russell, eyes closed and shaking his head: _'what a stupid plan, Muds. You´re mental_ '

He is aware in a disinterested way of the confusion going on around him, the screaming people and the sound of a chase starting. More than one person approaches to see if he is well, but he ignores them, shakes with a grunt more than one hand trying to help him. Only when he sees a flash of black and white approaching does he deign to look down again.

At the approaching rozzer, his expression strained and grey.

“Niccals,” Inspector greets him, lips barely moving around his name. Granting teeth, probably. He does not crouch.

Murdoc smiles and blood runs down the side of his mouth.

_'Shut up, it's my plan.'_

"Took you long enough, hey, Harry."


	2. Chapter 2

At thirty, with a record almost as old as you, you stopped being a hooligan in the eyes of the police a good, healthy long time ago. Murdoc by this point already had the name of almost all local dibbles memorized, because if there is one useful thing that his father taught him (besides how to open beer bottles with one hand) was that knowing the name of who is arresting him is always useful. _'Some are scum just like the rest of us but with a badge and the Queen´s approval to shoot you in the face. Others are soft-hearted morons that want to 'help'. You gotta know which is which,' _Said Sebastian Jacob Niccals in a one-of-a-kind day of good mood.

Harry Atkinson is a bit of both, but at 57 it's hard to find a non-corrupt cop who isn't. By comparison, there are probably ten or eleven rookies who would definitely buy his 'turn a new leaf' speech with two-thirds of the effort that takes making Harry at least _hear _him. But Murdoc doesn't need a young, doe-eyed baby cop this time. Because when you know the name of almost the entire nick, it means that almost the entire nick knows your name too.

He is old news. To convince anyone that he has changed/is changing, he needs someone of weight on his side. Like releasing a carefully edited scandalous video or spreading a juicy rumor to attract attention. Throwing gasoline into dying fire, mate, he knows this stuff.

Enters losing half of his face.

Enters Inspector Harry Atkinson, known, hard, smart, don´t take shit from anyone but also have, what they say, eh? A _good _heart.

(The fact that he is the cop who arrested his old man is definitely not a coincidence. Murdoc is a master of his art, after all.)

"You should go to the hospital," Harry says.

Murdoc shakes his hand toward the other man, not moving from where his head is hanging back with an ice pack against the side. The blood that had begun to dry is softening with the water, dripping down his already painted neck. “I know what a concussion feels like, mate. This ain't anything but a headache.”

“And if you broke your face's bones-”

“They'll settle back on their own, won't they? Don´t get your knickers in a twist, I already did this shit before. Fuck off. Actually, no, you should be kissing my arse since I did your bloody job! Where´s my fucking reward?”

“Your reward,” The inspector replies, voice flat. “Is not getting thrown in jail with your mates.”

Murdoc snorts and immediately regrets it. “Fucking- urgh.” He pinches his nose through the shocks of pain — not broken by some miracle — and leans forward in the chair. One look at the blood-covered ice bag and he drops it on the table, over some papers, water, and blood dripping all over them. “Don't call them 'my mates', it's bloody disgusting. Bunch of ass cracks, is what they are. And what do you mean my reward is ‘not getting thrown in jail', huh? I saved a- a lot of people back there! If it wasn't for me, that poor shop would be in pieces-!”

“Considering you were _in_ the scheme to rob the 'poor shop' in the first place, I think not getting arrested is a good enough compensation, you bloody knob.”

Murdoc throws his hands up and drops back against the backrest, crossing his arms. A token protest as it might have been, a reward would have been nice. Isn't there something about encouraging good behavior as common sense? That Pavlov shit Noodle talked about once, after reading one of her nerdy books.

Harry picks up the ice bag with a grimace and throws it in the trash with a wet _thud_. “And what a botch job you did. Throwing your car in front of theirs? Are you trying to actually kill yourself now? ”

“Hey, what else was I supposed to do, huh? You dickheads didn't listen when I told you about the plan and it's not like they'd stop if I throw _myself _in front of the car, that'd only get me flatted like a bug.” He spears a finger between them before opening the palm, dismissive. “And it worked, didn't it? Everything went fine.”

“Except the part where you caused thousands of euros worth of public damage and got your face pounded in-”

“-And got you a nice charge of bodily assault and destruction of public property in addition to the attempted theft, so you're bloody welcome. Again. Seriously, where´s my reward?”

Harry sighs and looks at him from under his bushy eyebrows. If Murdoc _feels_ his skin like old leather in the sun, he _sees_ it reflected in Harry sitting across the table, only six years older when he no doubt envisions a 30-year difference between the two and a conversation that reflects that. And Murdoc is happy to give it to him – it's easy, he has a way of speaking that hasn't changed since he was 16 and doesn't plan to start changing now or ever. Even if spiritually, he is about to reach Harry.

He watches him cross fingers across the table like a bad TV detective and could mumble the words that come out of his mouth as he utters them.

“Why did you do it, Niccals? You were in a stealing fever for weeks now, why the sudden change of mind? ”

Cliché, really. Good people always seem to be ripping off from bad movies.

Murdoc tries to remember what happened to Harry in the future. Can't. Isn't surprised, not when remembering his own life is a challenge of unscrambling drunken delusions, straight-up hallucinations and made-up memories, gaping holes in the sinking boat that is his brain most of the time. Too many holes punched in the foundation to function properly, he reckons. No one should really expect he'll remember about _other _people's life.

(people do, of course. And he _does _remember, some, but- well)

He throws an arm over the back of his chair and picks under his pinky's nail with the thumb, ignoring the way the position sets his shoulders and neck on fire. He shrugs, sneering, casual and unruffled. “They were going to ram right through the shop window, mate. It was nuts.”

“_You _'ve done it at least three times already.”

"Yeah, well, it wasn't me on the wheels this time, was it?"

“Funny enough, this was going to be the first during broad day.”

He keeps picking at his nails, poking the clotted blood underneath, hums disinterested. He is wistful for a cigarette but doesn't ask for one or looks up or somehow acknowledges the silence being pressed upon him. Russell could say whatever he wanted about him never shutting up, but Murdoc knows enough to at least recognize when _less_ is his best option.

He finally looks up when Harry moves, a few seconds of silence had passed. The inspector stands up, a shaking of his head finishing with his mouth smoothing out of something too negative to be called a smile, but too positive to be a grimace. "No charges were pressed, so you're free to go this time, Niccals."

Murdoc laughs once and drops his head back a little to continue facing the older man. “This time, eh? You're a fucker.”

He opens his hands in a 'what can you do' gesture and walks towards the door. “Try for a change and stay out of prison, lad. Seeing your ugly mug here got tired years ago.” He drawls, dry, and twists the handle and swings the door open, presenting the dingy hallway Murdoc was hailed through hours ago. No handcuffs, a first.

Murdoc grins and rises from his chair. He is preparing to pull a middle finger from his t-shirt’s pocket as he passes the door but then he sees a man in a suit standing a few meters away, bald head and terrible mustache, talking to a bird officer around the corner. Murdoc immediately stops, gesture interrupted. Looks at Harry who has both thumbs hooked under the belt. The man shrugs. "He says he wants to thank you for saving his shop." He answers with a tone that lets on explicitly how amusing he finds the whole thing.

“You lot didn't tell him I was going to fucking rob him?”

"Hm, usually someone would have but I guess with this-" He wags a finger at the swollen and blacker than purple side of his face, considering the blood he refused to wash when they nicked him. “Well, no one likes to kick a dog when it's down and bleeding. For fuck's sake, Niccals, go see a doctor.”

Murdoc ignores him and looks back at the owner of Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium – whom he theoretically knows he met in the past life since the bloke was the one who, together with David and Rachel Pot, got him convicted. But for the life of him, that face brings absolutely nothing to mind.

He snorts and turns away, towards the station´s back door, not entirely sure why the idea of being thanked is irking him since flattery of any kind usually gets him very much going.

Maybe it's the pain. Or the tiredness. He has not slept right since he woke up here since the backseat of a car will only get you so far in the dream realm.

(the whole '20 years in the past 'didn't help but really, Vauxhall Astra would have been a lovely car if not for the bloody springs digging his spine.)

"If you want a reward, that's your man!" Harry says from behind him, way too amused.

Therefore Murdoc finishes removing his middle finger from his pocket and throws it over his shoulder without looking, snapping his hand against the door to open it. It hits the wall in a violent _bang! _and spins back in the same momentum and Murdoc steps out of the way, fishing out from his pants pocket the cigarette pack he stole from one of the cops. The door clicks closed and cuts the noise of the station ('_Niccals, don't break the bloody-!_'). And what's left is the buzzing of a streetlight directly in front of him, the yellow light illuminating the small staircase he’s standing on that leads to a parking lot. Almost empty. And at night. Horns echo from afar.

He sticks a fag between his lips on the uninjured side as he fumbles for his lighter. "Shit," he mutters irritably. Did he even have it by now? He looked for it before but after he found the matches he forgot about it but now-

"Uh."

Murdoc stops.

He looks – his good side, the functional eye. Without moving his head first. But isn't enough, it came from farther back than his field of vision allows and he is forced to turn his head.

In degrees, pausing. _No fucking-_

_'Normal eyes'_ is the first thing that flashes. Horrible brown suit, three or four numbers bigger and the crooked black tie where the man- _boy_, really, is sitting on the last step against the wall and has his legs halfway to his chest, as if he had been sitting leg crossed, but had been scared into reacting- when the door slammed. Where he is, the door has undoubtedly at least brushed against his shoulder and the shock of blue even in the shitty night light is unquestionable. Messy and wrinkled, not because the owner doesn't comb his own hair or doesn't care about it, but because the owner is a mass of badly connected nerves most of the time, whose habit is pulling the strands of his own head when not biting his nails into nothing.

(He tried for years to smack him out of these habits because no band of his was going to have a _balding, no-nails singer- stop it 2D!)_

A cigarette between the thumb and forefinger, 2D looks at him with white corneas and light irises, nineteen-years-old and not a day older.

Murdoc stares.

2D fidges in obvious, glaring nervousness and searches for something inside his suit jacket with fingers that move more than necessary, shoes scraping on concrete as he fumbles to stand up.

Finally, he finds what he wants and offers it in the middle of his palm.

“This is- uh, you can use mine. If you want to,” He says and anxiety bends the statement into a question.

Murdoc drags his eyes to the offered object, brain taking a moment to process what he is seeing.

A yellow lighter. Normal. Cheap.

The kind you buy at a convenience store and throws away when the fluid runs out instead of refilling it.

His fingers quiver, arm stopping as he realizes what he was going to do and hesitating accordingly. _Why are you hesitating? _Tongue poking at one of the various cuts on his cheek, he forces himself to pick up the lighter at once, irritated that he is hesitating. Fingers curl around the familiar object and pick it up and handle it, the automatic actions and he's cupping around the fag to protect the flame as he snaps it on without thinking.

A long drag, hot smoke burning the cuts inside his mouth before descending and filling his lungs and he feels some tension dissipate as he exhales, gray columns filling the night air.

“Thanks,” He grunts and throws the lighter back to the boy, who flounders to catch it without dropping his own cigarette.

“You-you're welcome.”

Murdoc leans against the banister behind him, hand coiling in the cold metal while the other takes the cigarette from his mouth for a moment. There is a pause – he can hear the night traffic far away, the city expanding in the darkness around him and he thinks, with a humorless inner smile, how twenty years change things: 2D doesn't move away or sit back down, long, awkward body shifting in a mix of slow and fast, nervous, lighter twirling in his palm before he stuffs it in his pants pocket.

Murdoc tries to understand why he hasn't left yet, aware of the boy on the periphery of his vision. _Well, it's not like you have a home to come back to, _he reflects puffing.

“Uh, I'm Stuart, I work in the shop. Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium, I mean.”

2D stutters and his voice breaks three times.

Murdoc takes his cigarette between his forefinger and thumb and exhales the smoke, sits on the railing, Cuban heels clicking on the metal. “I know.”

"You do?"

“We didn't just _ram _through any shop, that would be stupid.” Murdoc looks up at last, head hanging to the injured side. The clear white eyes bother him in a way he doesn't like to admit, but he forces himself to stare at them. “This shit involves a little bit of, hm, how do you say? Reconnaissance. Yeah. We keep watch for a week, saw you last Saturday there.”

"Oh... they said, they said you were part of the gang that tried to rob Mr. Norman's shop-?"

“No offense, luv, as much as you are prettier than the bill who interrogated me for the last couple of hours, not really in the mood to talk more about this shitshow.”

“Oh, oh, okay. Sorry.”

2D drops his eyes to the floor at this and Murdoc watches him look for something to focus, fag rolling nervously between his fingers before the boy tucks it between his lips, tip lighting red for a moment. He copies him and leaves the butt hanging this time in his mouth, dropping his hands on his thighs, still watching his former-future singer.

He still seems to want to sink between his shoulders, Murdoc notes. But he stands upright, his spine stretched rather than crumbling in itself in an effort to appear smaller, desperately trying to be ignored in his glorious 1,88... mouth full of teeth, but this one is obvious. Whereas it was his own fists that knocked them out. Still pale and thin as if allergic to food and sun, though, and 2D looks alien of so healthy and good.

"I just," The boy begins and stops.

He still keeps his eyes on the floor but has something determined in the line of his eyebrows.

“I- I wanted to thank you, you know? That's why I came here with Mr. Norman, to thank you. So, uh, thanks.”

Murdoc blinks, caught off guard. Frowns. “Thank me for what?” He grumbles around the fag, tense.

2D darts a look towards him, surprise blooming the determination away. “I- you saved my life?”

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I _didn't _."

“You _did! _"

But the kid is fucking thick. _Why the fuck I'm having this argument now? _After all the times he tried to pull this card, when he doesn't want to do this anymore, when he won't _allow _himself this-

“Look-” He starts, gritting the cigarette between teeth but 2D ignores him.

Typically, unwinding from his nervousness as he finds a tangency to hold on to, he takes his cigarette from his mouth and gestures broadly. “I was right at the window when- when you crashed the car. I was trying to fix this old piano Mr. Norman wanted to try selling but because no one played it in years and it was just sitting by the shop window, it sounded shitty, just- just terribly, really, it was really out of tune. So I was with my head inside the piano trying to see if we could salvage the strings, and couldn´t see anything, and then I heard this really loud tire screech which startled me and made me knock the- rod keeping the piano open and it closed on me, kept me stuck there! I couldn´t move. And then there was this loud crash right beside me!” He waves his hand wildly, ashes flying from the burning fag. “And- and when I finally got out of the piano, I saw you inside your car and another car smashed right into you, _right outside _the window shop, like, a meter in or so from me. And- and- ”

2D is looking down, open palms hovering. He looks from side to side, seemingly trying to figure out a way to finish his speech on the dirty cement.

Murdoc does not move.

The steam that so suddenly filled him leaves him. He bites his lower lip, incisors instead of canines and premolars digging in the soft flesh as he brings his hands together, fingers rubbing the opposite palm. “They told me the other car was running straight to where I was and that if you hadn't done what you did, I'd've been hit. I´d- I´d have died.”

He looks at Murdoc then, a shrug and the hint of an awkward smile on the corner of his lip, picking at his cuticle. "So, you see, you really did save my life."

Murdoc looks away. Holds the cigarette without taking it out of his mouth, just unlocks his jaw enough to let the smoke rolls out and tries to find something so fundamentally different this time, if he did something to knock things off-trail to this direction – in his mind, the image of Stuart Pot sitting at the counter is clear, at the perfect height for a car flying over the curb at 90km/h hit, bumper first, against his face and throwing the boy back and the rest of the car passing over him, harmless. On the other hand, today, the shop window- 2D is right. Direct collision, full-body and at that speed? Certainly smashed against the wall like a big, brown bug.

He had not considered that. He didn’t make the connection between the two facts, waste time reflecting when his plan was to prevent the collision in the first place, why stew over details? Situations, variations. That's his goal here, isn't it? Changing thing. What's the point of worrying when it does happen?

Anyway, 2D is fine, isn't it? Better than before. Two eyes more than in his previous life and awake and not forcing Murdoc to drag his lump body every way, like a useless bag of cement.

_Win-win, right?_

“Don't mention it, sonny,” Murdoc drawls and hops down from the handrail, throwing down the fag butt to squish it under his heels. Then turns to walk away, feeling suddenly...

weird.

“Ah- w-wait!”

He thinks of speeding up, there´s a drainage grid at the very end of the staircase and would be like leading an ox to a cattle grid, really, that boy with his too-long limbs and the propensity to flail and fall down even on the evenest of surfaces. But his boots snap against the metal grate and stop grudgingly, hands tucked in his pockets. And he turns, good eye to stare at the boy stumbling down a few steps in an attempt to follow him.

Like a green stick in the wind, 2D shudders to a stop when he notices that Murdoc has listened to him and the surprise that spreads across his face is uncalled for, really – they don't fucking know each other here. What´s he getting surprised for?

“Uh- I,” 2D stutters, fingers twisting together.

The cigarette is not in sight anymore.

Murdoc raises an eyebrow and holding back the urge to bark 'spit it out' is perhaps the politest thing he has done in years. That it happened to 2D of all people is ironic in a transcendent way.

“Do you need a, a keyboard maybe?”

The second eyebrow joins the first. "What?"

“Or maybe a piano? That´d a little bit harder to get but I could, I don't know, talk to my parents or something, I think they'd help-”

“Okay kiddo, you lost me- actually, you never had me. What are you babbling about? I don't need a keyboard. Why would I need a keyboard?”

2D picks at the folds on his shirt. “Do you need anything?” He asks and sounds a little upset, which boggles Murdoc's mind even further.

“A billion euros and a private brothel,” He snide back. “What´s with the fucking random questions?”

“I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

“You already did, many times-”

“I work with keyboards and pianos,” 2D interrupts and then shrugs, moving to tug his cuffs. “I could give you one, if you wanted it, as a ‘thank you’?”

It's like a stake being lodged between his thoughts, grinding Murdoc´s progressively angrier thoughts to a sudden _stop_. 

Murdoc takes his hands out of his pockets and turns to 2D, sweeping the boy with a sharp look. Messy blue hair, wrinkled brown suit hanging from his skinny frame, eyes fixed on the floor – tall, thin and awkward, not much to find but then again, there never was.

19 or 42, 2D is transparent.

He´s rubbish at lying.

“What, if I said I wanted a grand piano, you´d give it to me?”

The boy frowns. “It would be a little harder, I'd have to ask for an advancement to Mr. Norman and my parents' help, it could take a while too. Oh, and I´d need your address to get it to send there-”

Murdoc laughs – humor born more out of incredibility than startlement but both are there. A pinch of bitterness too, like something rotten in his mouth. He lets his head lean forward, the back of his hand pressed against his mouth. _This is his life, right now_. The person who hated him just as much as they feared him is in front of him, wanting to give him a gift for saving their life when Murdoc was responsible for _destroying it,_ in another lifetime – Murdoc doesn't question the honesty of the offer, it doesn't even cross his mind doing it. That's because he doesn't have to, he knows. And it's hilarious, like a cosmic joke, the universe taking a piss of his so-called attempt to change things.

_So be it. _A better person would have walked away a long time ago, anyway. Even a terrible one _trying _to be better. But Murdoc is neither, now, is he? He´s still the same pile of hot trash some woman he never met pushed out, like shitting any last Sebastian Jacobs´s remains left inside her (and who could´ve blamed her? He´d do the same), and haven´ t changed a bit, not since Tony Chopper was the last person to ever humiliate him without getting a fight in return. And he´s not going to.

This is about altering the world, not him. 'A changed man' his ass.

“You're mental,” he says between giggles.

2D blinks, looking a little hurt. "Am not."

“Yes, you are. Don't argue with me.” Murdoc then gestures, palm up. "Give me your lighter."

"What?"

“Your lighter. Throw it.”

Confused, 2D tosses the lighter he tucked into his pants pocket and Murdoc easily grabs i, the plastic smackingagainst his skin. He throws it up once before picking it up, the weight of an almost empty lighter familiar to his fingers when he is pocketing it in his t-shirt (the side not stained with dried blood), patting it with a shit-eating grin. “There. We are even. Now go home, kid, and don't offer anything else to any other handsome stranger at night in the street.”

2D´s eyes are wide, mouth parted a little. Frozen still, for once not even a finger moving as Murdoc turns on his Cuban heels with a lazy wave as a goodbye and walks away.

For real this time.


	3. Chapter 3

It is a bizarre experience, waking up the next day in his shitty bedsit place in Stoke as a free man, when his memory so clearly says it should be in a cell smelling of old piss, being yanked awake by a guard to be dragged in front of a judge. 

Maybe it´s the lack of a hangover. 

Which is not unknown to Murdoc but not so familiar as one might imagine, if only because to have a hangover you first need to have stopped drinking long enough for your body to try to recover. Murdoc spent good long years avoiding this particular step in the process of getting drunk, by simply never allowing himself time to sober up, if he could avoid it. 

Murdoc didn´t have a drop of alcohol since he woke up here – which_ isn´t _ an attempt to avoid alcoholism in this second bullshit life or whatever (not that he thinks this was even possible, as if he wasn´t already well down this particular path since he was fifteen), but a mere coincidence of multiple events that´d get a better outcome if not dealt with while piss-poor-drunk. Without mentioning the painful lack of any form of money, having been vividly and irreversibly fired (pissing on your boss table tends to get this result) from his last gig and followed up by the pre-commemoration parties over the stealing plans with Billy and the other idiots eating whatever was left of his money. Empty pockets and a reputation already established in almost every pub in town, Murdoc doesn´t have any other option but a personal Volstead Act. 

Sobriety doesn´t suit him, drags his mood into the mud. The fact he woke up during the period of his life where he is neither a)_ famous _nor b)_filthy rich,_ but actually c)_poor, nameless and desperate _does not, in fact, help in the good mood department. Murdoc is, as a rule, an optimist – or maybe ‘_optimist’ _ isn´t the right word to describe a system where you absolutely refuse to believe you could be in any way less than the sacred image you have of yourself inside your head, and uses any means and ways and paths to keep yourself afloat and laughing at those who doubted you could draw the next breath. Maybe ‘too stubborn to die’ would be a better way of saying it –, which leaves implicit that this emotional state goes against his carefully constructed nature. 

So, Murdoc does what Murdoc does best. He opens all cabinets and wardrobes and rummages through the lumps of garbage in his bedsit and punches everything he judges important inside an old backpack, grabs his bass guitar and an egg sandwich from the fridge and leaves without locking the door. 

On the street, he swallows the stale sandwich in a few bites while scanning the neighborhood and finds what he needs after a few moments. 

“Hey,” He says, approaching the hooded kid unlocking a car. He looks up, bloodshot eyes in annoyed and suspicious slits. Murdoc doesn´t give him time to cuss, spit or whatever and raises the bedsit´s keys dangling in his middle finger. “A bed and a fridge, already paid for the rest of the month, for your car.” 

The annoyance pauses. The kid analyses the key and looks at the building falling into pieces behind Murdoc, then nods. Murdoc grins and approaches the open car door in quick steps and gets in the same movement he tosses the keys, kid fumbling to catch it and taking the step back Murdoc needs to close the door and prevent any tricks or ‘changes of mind’. Drops the backpack and the bass guitar in the passenger seat. 

Hoodie boy, keys in hand, scratches his already scraped neck. “Car ‘s not mine.” 

Murdoc finds the ignition and starts the car. “Ap isn´t mine either. Say hello to Mr. Reuben for me when he comes back from London!” 

Tires sing e Murdoc can see the smoke rising by the rearview mirror and he throws a middle finger to the asshole honking as he swerves into the street. 

\- 

Murdoc seam through the traffic for a few hours, working a random route in a familiar pattern to lose any continuity in the street cameras that will try to track his new car. 

The thing is, he contemplates, there isn´t a lot he can do. 

Gorillaz will be born again, obviously – a world without his band might as well explode, considering the cosmic relevance left once removed their magnitude. But at this moment, this _ exact instance _ of his life, there isn´t anything he can do to speed up the process. Well, there is, as long as he goes to Japan and manages to find a specific governmental secret base and then flies to New York after finding the cure to demonic comas (because Noodle is his favorite. 2D was the first by a geographic matter). And while none of this is extraordinarily out of his capacity, both unfortunately requires money. 

Considering the effort that took to not be arrested yesterday, and that he is supposedly ‘turning a new leaf’ or whatever, blowing up an ATM may not be the best idea to promote this new image. Murdoc decides that, for now, he´ll avoid doing anything triggering to the police. Excluding the car, because he isn´t going to _walk, _this isn't the fucking stone age. And finding a way to get more cigarettes, fill up his tank and his newly acquired lighter without cash because no one can expect him to remain without alcohol _and _nicotine. 

It´d be ridiculous. 

How do you say? 'You can't have both'. With an addiction missing in the bill (stealing counts? Hmm), the others are a must. 

“Thanks,” He says taking the heavier lighter from the cashier and stuffing it in his pocket and then nods to the back of the store. “And hey, saw some kids slipping some drinks inside their backpacks back there.” 

The woman startles, looks at the indicated spot where there are, in fact, three pre-teens clustered around one of the refrigerators, laughing among themselves the way pre-teens always laugh in public. A sound, thanks to media and movies, that connotes nothing but a general air of something suspicious going on. She frowns and slams the canister of flammable liquid on the countertop before stalking off, barking a shrill "_ hey! _" that catches the attention of everyone in the store. Creating the perfect opportunity to Murdoc to add the canister to the unpaid cigarette packs and the chocolate bars inside his backpack before walking out of the convenience store in an easy saunter. 

He takes off the gas pump, close the lid and enters the car 

Slips into the street without any drama. 

\- 

Impatient and bored fingers tapping the wheel, Murdoc impulsively decides to go to the car-seized cemetery to try to find his Astra. When he finally finds a vaguely familiar crumbled red thingy in a ‘U’ shape, he cleans the glove compartment of the surviving playboys before opening the trunk for his parties´ remnants: the drink bottles, predictably if not least heart-breaking, are all in pieces and filling the compartment with the smell of cheap alcohol. The other ‘items’ are soaked – Murdoc sniffs them, considers the odd mixture of odors and decides to save it with a shrug. Maybe the alcohol´ll give it an extra kick. 

He then tries to find his ring – cheap, a black-painted metal circle with a glued skull, but a favorite none less, missing from his collection and making his pinkie feel strangely light. But he doesn't find it, even after ripping off the rugs and shaking them, or lookin into any hidden surviving corners of the car. 

With a frustrated growl, Murdoc ruffles his hair, trying to remember the last time he saw it. He considers the apartment, but soon dismisses the idea, remembering the vague image of seeing it in his hand when he was inside the Astra, wrapped around the wheel. With the blur of events that followed, his next clear memory of it is noticing its disappearance last night on the way back from the police station and- after twisting his brain, he has splatters of a feeling of lightness in his pinkie while talking to Harry. 

He wrinkles his nose and throws his arm up to pull back the long sleeve of his black shirt, exposing his wristwatch: 4:30 pm. 

He spins on his heel and returns to his car, stopping only to rip off a plate from a 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that he finds on his way. 

\- 

He throws away the 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo car plate in a public trash can, his other hand in his jacket pocket, eyeing the flow of people on the sidewalk – it's 5:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon and the crowd reflects that. He gets more than one look, all hovering over the collection of purples beginning to green on the left side of his face, cuts either in plain sight or barely concealed by old band-aids Murdoc found in the bottom of a drawer in his old bedsit, and remnants of dried blood, probably. His eye is still a little puffy as well. 

He lost a fight with a wall of muscles and he shows it. Don´t particularly care. Not when with a few glares to go along with it, it opens the crowd in a wide berth around him and allows him to freely walk towards the yellow and black tape and the wrecked ex-asphalt it´s isolating. He eyes the black tracks painting the street with a small grin, two patterns coming from different ways before meeting half-way. 

Murdoc is proud, in a weird way. Like watching Kong Studios burning from afar, flames licking the night and waving. The remnants of a fruitful scheme, the adrenaline rush of an impulsive decision without thinking about the consequences, only the benefits. 

_ Saved a life, didn´t I? _He says to the part of him that shakes its head, Russel-shaped and tired, the one that sometimes reminds him of his mother and of the night his dad was taken and never came back. He kicks a rock. Watches it bounce over the remains of the accident with a smile that feels plastic, sewn into place, until he rubs the back of his hand roughly against his mouth and manages to wipe it off – thinks, _focus _in thinking '_I won't ever find my fucking ring in this mess' _with eyes on the glass shards and pieces of metal and concrete littering the ground. Even though he´s not really seeing anything. 

(he´s alive, isn´t he? You didn´t think of that, did you?) 

(they both are, aren´t they?) 

(everyone is still breathing and living and locked away-) 

(away, as far as possible) 

“Hey.” 

He lifts his head from where he is crouching on the floor, arms braced on his thighs and there´s a moment where there is a delay between his eyes and his brain, crawling back into his skull with difficulty and haste. The late afternoon sun paints a layer of gold on the usual grey city, reboot, restarting: and finally untied red sneakers and some zombie movie shirt and baggy jeans, horrible brown suit gone, 2D waves, dumb little smile in place. 

_ Of-fucking-course. _

“Heey,” He throws back because why not? Let´s see how this goes. “Got any painkillers?” 

2D blinks, open fingers curling as he lowers his hand. He pats his jeans pockets and pulls out a seemingly empty pack. "Uh, here." He flips the card and offers and that's when Murdoc sees the only white pill in the lower-left corner. The cut brand name is in the part where past pills have been popped out and he feels mild disappointment when he figures it is a common painkiller and not one of the opioids the boy sometimes uses for his stronger migraine crises. 

But he snatches it anyway. Pops the pill out from the pack and throws it into the back of his mouth and swallows it dry in one smooth, practiced movement. Crumbles the pack and hurls it to a garbage bin while standing up. 

A three-pointer. 

“Does it still hurt?” 2D asks, curious, looking at his bruises. 

“Oh, no, no, no. No, I just got punched fifteen times in the face yesterday. I´m peachy!” 

“That doesn´t feel like it´d be peachy. I stub my toe one time and it hurt for two days.” 

Murdoc snorts. Winces, when its shots pain up his nose and he gingerly touches the band-aid patching his nose bridge while asking. “What are you doing here, kid? Sunday´s the Lord´s day, you should be- I don´t know, what you Christian folks like to do anyway? Sings in choirs? Shot Jews?” 

2D tilts his head. “I don´t think I´m Christian. Are you?” 

“What bloody part of me ´d make you think that?” 

The boy gestures to his own neck and then points to Murdoc´s chest. “You're wearing a cross.” He simply replies. 

Murdoc instinctively looks at his necklace, hand raising to the golden piece. He looks back at the boy with the pendant pinched between his thumb and forefinger raised between them. "It's inverted, paper brain." 

“It´s St. Peter´s symbol, right?” 

Murdoc drops the cross back to his chest, an eyebrow raised in surprise. Well, this conversation is not remotely going anywhere he predicted, is it? Religion and its symbols distorted by pop culture are _not _one of the topics he ever envisioned himself discussing with 2D. Or with anyone, in fact, other than the occasional outraged religious wanker: _ Satanism__ propaganda!_ _Religion s__lander! Indecency! Devil-worshiper, how dare __you-__! _He has no real theological interest beyond what is necessary to annoy people and get what he wants, after all. 

“I´m more for the other meaning. ‘Hail Satan’ and all that.” Which actually is not what Satanism is really about and if Murdoc was being honest, he´s closer to an occultist than anything else. But it´s a lot funnier saying Satanism and watch people´s reactions. 

But 2D is 2D and sucks the fun out of everything by being bloody nice. The boy blinks a couple of times as if waiting for something more and when he finally realizes Murdoc is not planning in adding anything else, he nods politely. “Oh, okay. That´s nice. Never met a Satanist before.” 

_ Fucking. __God._ As boring as the first time, if not more. At least the first time the kid´s folks and the hospital crew were present and made up for the lack of reaction from 2D himself (who was being all whiney and lazy, laying there in a coma or whatever. Not a proper excuse, in Murdoc pissed opinion of the time.) 

Murdoc rolls his eyes. “Well, that was bloody brilliant, but-” 

“I´m doing some extra time in my job,” 2D prompts, jabbing a thumb to the store behind him. Window curtains closed and a 'closed' sign on the glass door and Murdoc looks at him and something from his inner 'and?' must have been transmitted, as the boy shrugs, slightly embarrassed. “You asked.” 

Oh, right. He did. 

He opens his mouth to- I don´t know, say something scathing (out of habit more than anything else) but 2D interrupts him again. 

“I´m just tunning the, the piano. You can´t do that with an open shop and costumers, you know? Because of the noise and people keep asking what I´m doing when I´m trying to focus and I end up cocking up the tuning keys. So, I asked Mr. Norman if I could do it on Sunday when the shop is closed.” He looks at him for a moment, then. “Do you want to see it?” 

Instinctively, the first answer that pops up in his mouth is a ‘why would I’ because twenty years of habit are hard to change and he spent a lifetime shooting down any offer to know more/about other people's interests. After a while, regardless of what he really wants, ‘no’ became his to-go answer. 

_ Again __with __the __introspective __shit__. _

Murdoc glances to the street, registering its movement and the late afternoon, his new car parked over the sidewalk. “Sure,” he replies with a lopsided grin, shoving his hands in his pants pockets before looking back at 2D. “Why not? Don´t have anything to do, anyway.” 

2D smiles, happy as a lark and turns to the store. When his hand rests on the doorknob, he stops, however, elbows angled away from the body, and turns to Murdoc with something nervous in his expression. “By-... by the way, uh, what's your name? I told you mine but you never said yours...” 

"Asmodeus the Third." 

2D opens his mouth but says nothing immediately and Murdoc snickers at the boy's hesitation, the slight panic when he can't find a way to react to Murdoc's answer. He throws an arm over the slender shoulders and unceremoniously drops his weight, pulling 2D down until he's comfortable and the boy twisted and ignores his surprised squeal. "It's Murdoc, you bloody nutcase." He grins and sticks a hand to the kid. "Murdoc Niccals, local genius and every woman's wet dream, a pleasure to be met, I know." 

2D looks down to his hand and gingerly takes it, long fingers cold on his. “S- Stuart Pot, uh, zombie- zombie specialist?" 

Murdoc laughs and opens the shop's door, half dragging, half hanging on 2D. The boy stumbles, struggling to keep up, but doesn't try to wiggle away or does Murdoc feels him shaking under his arm – it's a solid, bony line against his body, ruffled, messy hair full of split ends of someone who untie knots with a comb and brute force scraping down his neck and cheek, the same shampoo of forever mixed with sweat. It's almost- it's alien, the sensation. The casual companionship. 

This is not how they work. 

(maybe at the beginning) 

(maybe at first, before he learned) 

(before he found out who and what is Murdoc Niccals) 

His arm turns into lead, so heavy that it slips off 2D shoulders alone and the smile on his face plasticizes, flawless. The boy slowly unfolds like an air dancer being filled little by little, gives him a curious look that Murdoc can't meet. 

He looks around the store, forcing himself to be curious. It is, after all, his first time inside it. Intact, that is. 

It's not big, grand or anything more than what it really is: an instrument and music store. A large workbench divides the place with all sort of electronic equipment hanging behind it, bookshelves with labels and boxes filling the back wall, while the rest of the space is occupied by three vertical pianos in various states of open and the grand mahogany-black piano right in the middle of the window, under the name of the store. Murdoc takes the cigarette pack out of his pocket and pulls one out with his teeth, watching 2D go towards the mahogany piano. 

The boy puts one hand on the side of the instrument and turns to Murdoc, other hand palms up and he doesn't say ‘ta-dah!', but only because he changes his mind at the last second if the slightly embarrassed expression that crosses his face is anything to go by. "Do you know anything about pianos?” He asks instead. 

Murdoc takes the lighter from his pocket and lights his cigarette. Takes a drag, lets the smoke out and puts the lighter back before answering. “Sure.You play them, do it right and you get ace music.” 

2D huffs a quiet laugh and turns to the chair, where are the mutes and the tuning hammer. “I´m almost done, I think, just giving, like, some final touches.” He picks up the objects Murdoc has seen, in a few moments of his life, the singer handling to adjust the few pianos that came to be under his care since as a rule 2D prefers keyboards. The boy puts his tools in the music rack before sitting down and strumming a few notes, a disconnected melody. 

He hits A-2 and Murdoc feels the tune like a shiver down his back. "Yeah, that sounded a bit off," he says around the fag, approaching the piano. 

2D gets up from the chair holding his finger on the key and steps on the center pedal before hitting the off-key note again and Murdoc is close enough to see the internal string system shaking. He leans on his arms on the side of the piano, heels crossing, and watches 2D carefully isolate the right string with the rubber wedges, foot on the right pedal this time. He fits the tuning hammer into the key. In Murdoc's eyes, the kid makes absolutely no movement, but after a moment he releases the pedal and sounds the note once more. 

A perfect A-2 resonates and Murdoc can see 2D's satisfied smile spreading out together with the sound.

The boy removes the muting rubbers and sits back, bringing his hands over the piano keys. 

“Let me try.” Murdoc waves at 2D and the kid, after blinking at him in surprise, obediently budge up and Murdoc sits beside him on the bench, which is big enough for them both to stay facing the piano. He takes the fag off and lets it on the piano corner before resting both hands over the keys. “How was it? Hmm… ah, right, liiike this…” 

He begins to play and the longing harmony fills the store, overlapping the muffled sound of the street. He feels 2D straightening up slightly at his side and Murdoc doesn't have to look to see the boy's surprised expression. 

“_When__ I __find __myself _ _ in times __of __trouble__, _ _ Mother __Mary __comes to__ me_,” he sings, relaxed. "_Speaking __words __of __wisdom__, l__et__ it __be__… __And __in _ _ my _ _ hour __of d__arkness__, __she __is __standing __right __in front _ _ of _ _ me, __speaking __words o__f __wisdom__, __let i__t _ _ be__... __Let__ it __be__, l__et __it __be,_ _let i__t b__e__, let it __be.__.. __Whisper __words _o_f__wisdom,_ _let __it __be__…"_

The melody rises in its natural crescendo, his fingers snapping against the ivory, high, beautiful-responding notes echoing with delight as he lets them die. And Murdoc smiles a small smile, pleased, because it's been a while since the last time he played piano, but one should always appreciate the classics. 

“Well, it sounds good to me." 

“Why did you stop?” 2D asks, pure _delight_ in his voice that stops Murdoc short of reaching for the fag.

He turns instead to the younger man, whose smile is big and expression lively. He looks 100% honest, nervousness and anxiety gone from his posture and he answers Murdoc's raising eyebrow with a shrug. “It sounded good. Are you a pianist or something?” 

Murdoc snorts a laugh, ignoring the pain this time. Reaches for the fag. “Nah, too posh for me. I just use it to compose.” 

“You write music?” 

Murdoc hums and ignores the _ waves _ of curiosity and excitement emanating from his singer or the way the kid leans towards him, as if they weren´t already glued from shoulder to waist and getting closer is a valid option – 2D and his paradoxes, the way he remains painfully aware of his space until the moment something distracts him enough and suddenly is like being with a clingy koala, his brain disconnecting from the act of watching out for his body. A distracted child clutching at their mother´s skirt without even thinking about what they´re doing. At the beginning of the band, it was like that, at least. Before-... well. 

(slap a dog so many times and it'll stop coming closer to you, after all) 

Keeping the fag in his mouth and steady against the weight of 2D, he starts playing again. "Your turn, sunbeam."

2D startles, caught off guard. He shifts with a renewed sense of nervousness but when the melody cues in, the boy takes a shallow breath and begins to sing. "_When I__find _ _ myself__ in times __of__trouble__, __Mother __Mary _ _ comes to __me, __speaking __words __of __wisdom__… l__et _ _ it _ _ be__…_” Low at first , but the stumbling on the vowels and consonants and the stuttering and hesitation smooths out gingerly and is like seeing a river full of rocks easing into a clear stream, the way 2D´s voice flows and _ softens._ The permanent tension in the boy's spine melts and as he advances through the song, Murdoc feels the familiar spark of pride wanting to curve his mouth: _ that'__s _ _ my _ _ fucking _ _ singe,_ _ from _ _ my _ _ fucking__band__..._something that regardless of disagreements, of hurt or anger, always, always remained present.

Murdoc makes up for the absence of the other instruments by altering the notes to support 2D vocal, more in instinct than memory. He starts to hum the words quietly, letting the lyrics and the melody guide his fingers until he is barely having to think about what he is doing and his eyes are closing - just enjoying the song. The chorus comes and goes and when Murdoc realizes, he's singing along, a bass rumble to chaperon 2D's more high-pitched voice. _ “I _ _ wake _ _ up _ _ to _ _ the _ _ sound _ _ of _ _ music__, _ _ Mother _ _ Mary comes _ _ to _ _ me _ _ speaking _ _ words _ _ of _ _ wisdom__… __Let _ _ it _ _ be__…” _

He leaves to the boy the more high-pitched parts as they dive into the final part of the song, slamming the keys to echo the required intensity even without the guitar and drums. 2D´s voice rings then, higher to the last line before decreasing slowly and allowing Murdoc to wrap up the end, the lazy deep tones vibrating around the store. 

His hands slip down to his thighs, the end of the song lingering for a second longer even in the silence. 

“That was nice. You play very well.” 

Pause interrupted. Murdoc resists the urge to glance at 2D, who Murdoc can_ feel _is looking at him and something in the boy's voice or even the still relaxed spine beside him tells him that 2D is smiling.

(he smiled at you more in the last ten minutes than in the last twenty years together) 

(what do you think about that, hot trash?) 

_ Shut. U__p__. _

“I know.” Murdoc throws his ankle over his knee and pulls out one last drag before stubbing out his cigarette on the sole of his boot. He pats the side of the piano, his rings clinking against the black wood. “It's well-tuned. Good job, kid,” he says before getting up, ignoring 2D staggering at the sudden loss of support.

"Uh, thanks." 

Murdoc flicks the fag butt at the trash can besides the door while walking towards it, the other hand deep in his jacket´s pocket, suddenly deciding that his Volstead Act ends tonight. He grabs the handle and opens the door with a dramatic swish. "Well, that was dandy and all but I got a date with a bottle of whiskey so I better get going, hate it to be late," He drawls, expression casual. 

2D stands up, fingers tapping together and it's a cross between nervousness and hesitation that colors his voice, the easiness from before fading. “Oh, okay. I gotta- uh, close the shop and...”

Murdoc tilts his head, considering the nervous stance in front of him by the corner of his eyes while the kid struggles to find an alternative to the 'go home' he does not want to say.

Right. 

He kind forgot about… this.The majority of their interactions, a 95% chunk of it, was cruel sarcasm and violence and rage and fear permeating everything, a claustrophobic air that they were forced to share because they were together, they were a band and the other option was not to be a band and that was not an option. And perhaps that's why Murdoc forgot the time when things weren't like this – 2D young and eager to impress, happy to be chosen with the admiration of someone who has never had anything extraordinary happening in his life before colliding _ literally _ with someone whose existence was like the bad script of a frustrated writer.

Not 'beauty in tragedy', but 'fascination in the horrible’. Which makes sense, once you're introduced to the collection of horror movies that this kid says helps him ‘calm down'. 

(Not that judging was _ fair_. After all, people have that so-called 'morbid fascination' of wanting to look at the run-down body. It's part of what constitutes a 'regular person'. 

Some people would be offended, perhaps. Being observed as a particularly horrifying specimen that people can't help but want to see up close. But Murdoc has built for himself all his life a personality that uses as its motto the spirit of the phrase 'I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right' and finds pleasure in exposing the raw and gore parts of himself in the most explicit way. That have fun watching people regret even _asking_. Because Murdoc is certainly a lot of bad adjectives, terrible, really, and unapologetic about them, but you can't say he's the type who's ashamed about himself. His origins, his story. He'll tell you everything, don't worry.

What do you want to know?) 

Again, as always, flattery is the way to go with Murdoc. The way 2D obviously wants to keep talking with him? Curiosity it´s its own form of admiration, after all.

“Heading to the Shaking Angel, ever heard of it?” He asks, leaning back on his heels. 

2D blinks and shakes his head. “I don't go to bars much.”

“Aren't you like, what, nineteen?” 

"Yeah." 

2D doesn't elaborate and if Murdoc didn't already know what he knows, this would be the moment he would most likely lose his temper, as 2D swings between the two extremes in a conversation:_ oversharing _ when the subject is keyboards or horror movies; or monosyllabic, short one-liners when it's about anything else. But the good news is that Murdoc knows about the context the boy didn't feel the need to explain (remembers Russell yelling at his face after seeing him give 2D a vodka shot to wash down the painkillers, a little after the whole Paula's incident, the fight after), has already pieced together the loose pieces in different conversations that after a good years finally formed the image of why 2D doesn't drink much.

It would only take five words to explain, 'my parents don't like it' or 'my doctor said it's bad'. 

Fortunately, Murdoc already knows all this. Plus, 2D’s painkiller is already working. 

A smile curves the corner of his mouth. “Well, see you there, then, sunbeam.” He doesn't _ mock _ but he can't soften everything, edges sharped for a lifetime can't do love taps. He steps back, hand on the doorknob, and then steps out closing the door behind him, last image of the boy opening his mouth slightly, surprised or beginning a word or both, but hesitating.


End file.
